world enough and time
by crankyhermit
Summary: Lazing in bed with someone special is an entirely overrated activity. Probably because of the type of special. Set soon after Kubota picks up Tokito. Manga spoilers up to volume 5.


**world enough and time**

He was warm and comfortable. That in itself seemed half-strange, almost distressingly. He needed -- he needed to... he didn't know what. He turned over, or tried to, and was confounded by a heavy, immovable form at his side and the taste of sweat and tobacco as he licked his dry lips to moisten them. Where...?

He blinked and turned his head, staring at the new-looking blinds and faint, peeling cracks on the plaster around the window without quite seeing them, inhaled the musky scent of the bedsheets -- not dirty, but slept-in, indisputably.

_Not the sharp stink of antiseptic or tang of blood_ -- what? He started to drift back into sleep, comforted by the warmth and smells even if he lacked room to stretch then, then he turned back, and was face to face with that Kubota fellow again. Oh.

Still asleep, Kubota exhaled softly onto his parted lips, and he started a little; that's why he was tasting tobacco, then -- had Kubota brushed his teeth? Had _he_ brushed his teeth? How, when had he gotten to bed, and Kubota too? He had been in the shower, looking at his monstrous hand, the fur wet and dark with water, claws gleaming, and then... then -- nothing. He must have fallen asleep. How embarrassing, to have to be picked up and carried to bed like a child, or a damned cat like Kubota liked to call him. Stupid. Wait.

A thought floated to the surface of his mind and froze him for an instant, then he looked down, as though he needed to confirm what his senses were telling him, _stupidstupidstupid_ and he kicked out, swearing. Kubota fell off the bed onto the floor with a heavy thump, and made a confused noise that made him feel only just the slightest bit guilty.

"Waaah! Why am I naked again? You pervert!" He pulled up the blankets around himself, and looked around for the clothes he was sure he had laid out before he'd gone into the shower. There they were! He grabbed them and started pulling them on under the blanket with short, angry tugs.

Kubota blinked slowly, yawned, scratched his head and looked around slowly, as relaxed and unconcerned as if he woke up in bed with near-strangers all the time. And Kubota probably did (minus the part where he got kicked out), he thought, carefully not looking at the grave, handsome features or long-limbed, lanky frame that loomed over him even in its habitual slouch, and the thought made his cheeks burn unaccountably.

"You," Kubota started, and yawned again, not quite bothering to cover his mouth. "Now you're decent. Can I come back to bed?"

He scrambled backwards on the narrow double bed, pulling the blanket up with him, not quite certain if he was retreating in horror or making room for Kubota. Kubota evinced no doubt of his reception, slouching up and flopping down beside him. "Well?" he demanded, as Kubota's eyelids started to flutter shut again.

"You," Kubota murmured, with the faintest suggestion of a crook to his lips. Blinked slowly, cat-like, and settled down in the place he had vacated, a long, warm presence that caused his entire side to tingle in reaction to the unaccustomed proximity. "Fell asleep in the shower. Carried you to bed. Grabbed me again." Grabbed, threw and pinned him like a wrestling champion, Kubota probably meant.

It wasn't exactly the first time -- that is, if the smug bastard was telling the truth (he didn't seem to be lying _now_, though.) "Um," he said, failing to think of a suitable comeback for this awkward and disturbing possibility.

"Good moves." Kubota yawned again. "Not used to sleeping with someone." His eyes closed again.

_Idiot!_ he railed at himself. Surely he wasn't used to sleeping with someone either? But he was entirely too awake now to have been much discomfited by the company, or, or maybe it was just the adrenaline rush from waking to find himself in a strange bed with a strange person -- that was a more than reasonable explanation, surely, considering how desperately conscious he was now of Kubota's breathing behind him, and the warmth...! _He's lying, he has to be, see how well he's sleeping now?_

Thoroughly irritated with himself, he tried to turn again, somehow managing to forget his position again, and rolled right into and half over Kubota. "Mmrph," said Kubota into his neck, inhaling sharply and letting it out again in a ticklish and somehow _gross_-feeling sigh, and he tensed up even more, appalled.

He decided he had had enough. "Oi!"

"Hm?" asked Kubota, without seeming to wake.

He shoved Kubota's shoulders, this time taking care not to shove him right off the bed. "Wake up!"

Sleep-fogged, still heavy-lidded eyes focused on him, and suddenly turned sharp and alert, and he shivered.

"I'm hungry," he announced, and right on cue, his stomach growled, lending support to his words. That was more embarrassing than almost everything else, the realization that his lie wasn't.

"There is instant cream of corn or cream of mushroom soup," Kubota suggested mildly, not moving from the bed. "Or I could cook some macaroni. What do you want?"

He thought about it. "Both. The corn soup. And macaroni." He considered it at greater length. "Is the cream of mushroom good?"

He thought there was something soft and amused about Kubota's look, though he couldn't have said precisely what made him feel that way.

"All right, then. Corn soup, mushroom soup, macaroni." Kubota sat up and cracked his neck. As Kubota swung his feet off the bed, he wanted to reach out, wanted to tell Kubota to stop, wait, he wasn't _that_ hungry, they could go out and get something to eat later -- and didn't.

He sat up and watched Kubota shuffle about the kitchen space, pulling out pots and packets of soup mixes. Because he was that hungry. And because they could always go back to bed to sleep later, when they had eaten. They could.

Right?

* * *

_(Not an ending either.)_

Yuletide 2007 story for scribblemoose.


End file.
